


step by step i got a brand new walk

by MaddieandChimney



Series: AU: Pour Some Sugar On Me [5]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M, hehe, stripper chim au again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26818483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: "You're not sharing me, Maddie. Trust me, my heart is completely yours.".A moment of insecurity around Howie's job leaves Maddie asking him how he deals with the judgement.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: AU: Pour Some Sugar On Me [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898176
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	step by step i got a brand new walk

“ _Wait, you’re actually dating a stripper? I thought you were just gonna sleep with him.”_

Maddie tries to shake off the words of her best friend as she stares at the man in front of her, forcing a nervous smile when she realises she’s been silent too long. It’s four in the morning and him bringing her a coffee and a sandwich when she’s on the night shift in work should be sweet, but it’s coated by the fact that Josh had nudged her with a smirk on his face and reminded her that _Chimney_ works nights, too.

“Are you okay, Maddie?” Of course he’s picked up on her mood, the two of them sitting on a bench outside the hospital as she absent-mindedly picks at the edge of the coffee cup. She wonders if she can live with the idea of him having just spent his entire night dancing whilst women lusting after him watched. She can remember her own not safe for work thoughts and dreams after he had given her a private dance that fated evening.

Maddie finds her eyes glancing over him, he’s wearing a well-worn, baggy hoody that hides his body (she wonders if he ever gets fed up of people looking at him in one way and one way only) and a pair of sweatpants. His eyes are tired and his hair sticking up as though he’d rushed to make sure they spend just half an hour together after a shower and before he went home for the night. She bites down on her lip, finger running along the edge of the cup before she takes a deep breath and looks at him, _really_ looks at him as though somehow he’ll have all the answers for her.

“How do you—how do you cope with people judging you for what you do?” That’s the question she finally settles on saying out loud but really, on a selfish note, she wants to ask him how she’s supposed to deal with people judging her for dating him, how she’s meant to be comfortable with the smirk on people’s faces and the look in their eyes as though they know something she doesn’t know. As though they simply know that a relationship like that can’t last, not when most would describe her as reserved and a little prudish when it came to anything that involved the prospect of dating and sex.

Howie’s face drops a little, although he quickly covers it up with a smile, shifting a little closer to her on the bench to take one of her hands in his own. “I know that I love what I do and that I’m happy, so I don’t let people drag me down. I know it’s not—it’s not a career and it’s not possible to keep doing it forever, I’ll age out eventually but it’s where I feel I belong right now and life is too short to worry about what other people think of me and my life choices.” The words are gently spoken, lips grazing along her cheek as his thumb moves against the back of her hand.

It’s easy to remember what made her want more, something beyond the handsome face and the gorgeous body when she’s looking down at the way his hand holds hers. It’s easy to remember how she fell so hard and so fast when she glances back up and sees the smile on his face and the look in his eyes. No one has ever looked at her like that before. He makes her feel as though she’s the most beautiful woman in the world with just one look. Her cheeks flush a dark shade of red when he tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear, “Did someone say something?”

Maddie had almost forgotten the look on Josh’s face and the smirk as he expressed disbelief that someone like her would ever be dating someone like Howie. “Nothing awful, just—it’s hard to think of you touching someone else, I guess. Not in a jealous kind of way because I-I know that you’re not like that. And I’m not embarrassed about what you do and trust me, if I were, that rumour train took off the second I told Josh who spread it around the hospital already and my brother… a few of the 118 remember you, you know?” He only nods at that, and flinches ever so slightly as he always does when she or Buck bring up that part of his life.

“This is going to sound crazy because we’ve only been dating a few weeks but I’d give it all up for you, if that was what you wanted.”

Maddie is all too quick to shake her head, moving her hand to his chest as she frowns. Her marriage hadn’t been a happy one, her husband had tried to control every aspect of her life, including her job and her shifts, using his superiority to get what he wanted and using her love for him to stop her from seeing how it was control and not love. “No, no. You love your job, you literally just told me that, I would never, ever ask you to give that up or change who you are and what you love for me. It’s just going to take time to get used to, right? I just have to share you sometimes, but I know it doesn’t mean anything to you.”

“You’re not sharing me, Maddie.” He finally whispers, lifting her hand from his chest to press her palm to his lips, “Trust me, my heart is completely yours.” Maddie can see how he’s spurred on by the grin on her face and the flush of her cheeks as he leans a little closer to press his lips to the base of her neck, “These lips are completely yours,” He whispers, his hot breath against her skin causing a tension to rise in her stomach, the kind of tension that most definitely should not be there when she’s meant to be going back to work in ten minutes. “these hands are entirely yours…”

The second his hand drops hers to move both of his to her thighs and his lips hover over hers, she can’t control the quiet whimper she lets out before she’s forcing herself to slide a little further away from him. Maddie glares at him when he smirks, crossing her legs as tightly as she possibly can when she takes a sip of the coffee. “Eat your sandwich, can hear your stomach growling from here.”

It’s with a pout that she takes a bite of the food he holds to her lips a few seconds later, rolling her eyes when she can still see that glint in his eyes. “Listen, why don’t you just come to mine when your shift is over?” The hand that isn’t holding the sandwich up for her, pulls out a key from his pocket, shrugging his shoulders when he slips it into the top pocket of her scrubs. “I can cook you lunch when we finally decide to crawl out of bed, although by the time I let you go that might be more dinner time.”

“That sounds nice.” Maddie smiles when he presses a kiss to her shoulder, ruffling her hand through his hair, giggling. Howie grins at her, and she can’t help but shake her head when she feels those butterflies in her stomach just at the sight of it. And then he captures her lips with his own when she leans forward to take another bite of the food he’s still holding out for her, both her hands moving to either side of his face as she just breathes him in entirely. “I should go.” She finally whispers when she pulls back enough, pouting when she moves to stand up. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“I’ll be waiting, and eat the rest of that sandwich, please.”

The brunette takes a step back with a laugh, holding up the other half and the coffee cup with a roll of her eyes, “Yes, Sir. Go get a few hours sleep.” The smile on his face is still wide and the sparkle in his brown eyes as he stands up is enough to pull her forward once more, practically slamming her lips to his as she wishes she could just forget the next four hours of her shift and go home with him. “I’m gonna go.” She whispers, stepping back as she does, “I have to go. I’m gonna—” An embarrassed laugh falls from her lips as she gestures to the hospital behind her, “Yep, you—you just walk away first and don’t look back.”

To his credit he does exactly what she needs him to do right then, winking at her before he walks away, extenuating the movement of his hips as he does in a way that makes her laugh in the kind of carefree, loving way she’d never heard from her own body before. Her hand moves to take the apartment key from her pocket with a smile. Just a few more hours until she can see him again, just a few hours to get through.


End file.
